This looks like an incredibly useful resource for journalism teachers exploring Web logs and participatory journalism in their classrooms. Full title: “We Media: How audiences are shaping the future of news and information” by Shayned Bowman and Chris Willis of Hypergene MediaBlog.
There are three ways to look at how society is informed. The first is that people are gullible and will read, listen to, or watch just about anything. The second is that most people require an informed intermediary to tell them what is good, important or meaningful. The third is that people are pretty smart; given the means, they can sort things out for themselves; find their own version of the truth. The means have arrived. The truth is out there.
Chapter 3 on “How Participatory Journalism is Taking Form” is especially relevant as it talks about how Web logs are supported by other technologies such as Trackback, meta-sites like Daypop that track Web log topics, and, of course, RSS. If the other chapters are as quality as that one, this might be a seminal work on the topic. More when I finish it…
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